About Us : Overview
BACKGROUND
Since 1988, the beginning of the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center’s existence, the nation’s health care delivery system has become increasingly complicated. The center leads the way in guiding our region’s hospitals, community health centers, and other providers in applying for federal funding under the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) and similar funding sources.
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center assists facilities with program development, policy modification, and the expansion of services, as well as long-range planning and other capacity-building initiatives. The center also provides technical assistance to improve organizational functioning and offers clinical services.
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center is always striving to do more. The center’s staff members are constantly seeking opportunities to measure their performance and to identify ways to better serve their trainees.
Focus groups, program evaluation forms, formal audits, and other needs assessment instruments help in the planning of the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center’s programs and budget. Every dollar is meaningful in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the center devotes nearly 90% of its budget to direct program training costs, with the remainder dedicated to evaluation and other infrastructure costs.
Striving to provide the region’s healthcare providers with the best possible tools, the center is innovative in its approaches to reaching these providers where they work, by offering on-site training, teleconferences, technical assistance, and online information and resources.
Through the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center’s ongoing organizational, government, and trainee contacts, it continues to assess needs and offer tailored training, experiential learning opportunities, and technical assistance. This longitudinal training approach ensures that the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center builds capacity at the local and regional levels through mentoring and support for clinicians who are treating those with HIV or at risk of acquiring HIV.
PROGRAM GOALS
Enhances HIV clinical treatment and prevention skills, as well as the acquisition of new skills and knowledge with didactic and skill-building training.
Conducts clinical preceptorships/mini residencies for community clinicians, utilizing AETC clinical experts to improve clinical skills and foster capacity building.
Provides expert clinical consultation to ensure “best practices” for treatment, offers treatment co-management, and refers patients to clinical experts.
Improves access to a comprehensive HIV care system for populations with reduced access to care through its Minority AIDS Initiative, providing special training and capacity building to clinicians, agencies, and clinics.
Trains local providers and others serving medically underserved populations, to build clinical capacity in local communities.
Creates and maintains a high standard of HIV care through training and technical assistance for RWHAP-funded agencies and programs to increase quality of care, reduce barriers, and improve access.
Conducts capacity building at new, emerging, and established community medical service sites including RWHAP clinics, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), and other sites to address quality and system gaps.
Trains clinicians on how to provide culturally appropriate interventions and care.
Provides training in the prenatal and gynecological care of women, including how to reduce perinatal transmission through appropriate screening, testing, and medication protocols.
Offers specialized training to correctional clinical providers in state, county, and federal prison systems.
Provides quality management training to agencies providing HIV care to ensure that treatment protocols are continually revised to reflect the current standard of care based on the latest research and best practices.
Trains clinicians on comorbidities of substance use, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, and mental health disorders in persons with HIV, in collaboration with other federally funded training centers.
Conducts ongoing needs assessments of institutions, clinics, programs, and individual clinicians, so that training can be tailored.
Rapidly disseminates information on advances in treatment via print, teleconferences, and the MidAtlantic AETC website.
Conducts regular evaluation studies to measure changes in provider knowledge, clinician practice patterns and decision making, patient care outcomes, and HIV care system enhancements.
SCOPE AND REACH OF MAAETC INTERVENTION
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center devotes considerable time and travel from our staff to reach locations throughout the region to engage individual clinicians, agencies and programs to conduct assessments, identify training topics, arrange logistics, networking with communities and develop programming tailored to regional and local needs. Furthermore, the location of training programs demonstrates that our expert faculty travel to reach all areas of our region demonstrating our commitment to improving the clinical knowledge and skills of our audiences to improve the quality of care for persons with HIV.
Rural areas of the region have been hard hit with the loss of industry, resulting in high rates of poverty within all age groups. There has also been an increase in drug and alcohol use in these areas, which contributes to the growing rates of STI and HIV infection within rural and medically underserved areas.
These factors provide justification and a rationale for the need for AETC intervention to equip health care providers in these areas with the knowledge and skills not just on HIV but STIs, hepatitis, substance use, and psychiatric co-morbidities of HIV. In addition, there is a tremendous need for capacity building through training and technical assistance to enhance healthcare infrastructure, policies, and procedures, thereby improving service delivery.
TARGETED TRAINING AUDIENCES
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center offers education and training programs specifically designed to improve HIV/AIDS care, treatment, and prevention services for:
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Physician Assistants
- Nurse Practitioners
- Dentists
- Dental Hygienists
- Pharmacists
- Social workers
- Case managers
- All members of interdisciplinary care teams
The most effective educators guide their teaching based on the principles of adult learning. The MidAtlantic AETC is proud of its tradition of training and education, which is based on the unique needs of trainees and provides the foundation for workshops, seminars, symposia, preceptorships, teleconferences, and other training sessions that prepare providers and clinicians to provide effective HIV prevention, care, and treatment.
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center takes great care to identify faculty and trainers who provide education that considers local versus regional or national expertise, and matches faculty to audience needs, such as discipline, practice setting, and prior experience with the patient population. Audience identification with the faculty serves as a catalyst for the participant to learn, provide quality care, and agree to ongoing follow-up opportunities.
The AETC training team considers numerous variables in determining the appropriate faculty for all levels of training and selects from a developed pool of expert faculty that encompasses all targeted disciplines. AETC staff coach each faculty member on the identified audience and their needs, including recent guidelines and specific issues, and attend all programs to assess faculty performance and conduct evaluations.
The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center trains health professionals from various backgrounds and locations throughout the region. Training is tailored to meet the HIV prevention, care, and treatment challenges of specific geographic areas, clinics, and individual clinicians. The MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Center works diligently to prepare providers with skills and knowledge that are tailored to the populations they serve. This individualized focus is a key element of the center’s success.